Quest for Thermoresponsive Block Copolymer Nanoparticles with Liquid-Crystalline Surfactant Cores.

This work reports on the preparation and characterization of anisotropic composition nanoparticles based on the electrostatic binding of dodecyltrimethylammonium surfactant to poly(acrylic acid) blocks of diblock copolymers with poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and poly(-isopropyl acrylamide) (PNIPAm). These nanoparticles form kinetically stable dispersions and display liquid-crystalline cores with a micellar cubic structure, as determined by small-angle X-ray scattering. Mixtures with different proportions of the two block copolymers and stoichiometric amounts of CTA were prepared and their behavior was compared with that of the parent nanoparticles.